SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY J. HONBRAKEN IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
The northern portions of America were for the most part more easily accessible to the English, and the dangers of Spanish and Portuguese attacks were more remote. The West Indies, however, and even South America, were not without their fascination, and many Englishmen made voyages to those parts, not so much for the purposes of discovery as for trade, buccaneering, and booty. The earliest of these West Indian trading voyages was that of Thomas Tison, who, it is known, sailed to the West, some time previous to the year 1526. He dwelt on one of the West Indian Islands as a secret factor for some English merchants; and "it is probable that some of our marchants had a kinde of trade to the West Indies even in those ancient times and before also: neither doe I see," says Hakluyt, "any reason why the Spaniards should debarre us from it at this present."25 As a trader, pirate, and slave-dealer, Sir John Hawkins made three celebrated voyages in 1562, 1564, and 1568, between Guinea and the West Indies. On one of these he was accompanied by Francis Drake, who was destined for far greater things than slave-dealing. After many adventures off the Spanish main, Drake, in the spirit of a Crusader, started on his momentous voyage round the world. In a small vessel called the Golden Hinde or Pelican, with a still smaller ship, the Elizabeth, the great seaman sailed from Plymouth in February 1577. Sailing down the South American coast, he at last arrived at the Straits of Magellan, where one of his company, Master Thomas Doughty, mutinied and was executed. After being deserted by the Elizabeth, the voyage proceeded along the shores of Chili and Peru; and passing still farther north, it is probable that Drake discovered "that portion of North America now known as Oregon, and anticipated by centuries the progress of English colonisation: the New Albion, which he took over from the Indians, being probably the British Columbia of to-day."26 Drake's return was made without any very serious mishaps, and he dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound in November 1580. It was a fine exploit, and roundly applauded throughout the country. No one, however, realised at that time, nor indeed for generations to come, that Drake had discovered and annexed what was afterwards to become so large a portion of the British dominions beyond the seas.
One man in particular could not fail to be moved to enthusiasm by these voyages of discovery. The dream of a great country in the far West, peopled by the Anglo-Saxon race, was ever before the eyes of Sir Walter Raleigh. The character of this great man of action was not without many faults, for it was composed of much fine gold tempered with clay. His endeavours, however, to extend the limits of Britain's rule excite the imagination and entrance the mind of the reader. The mantle of Gilbert fell upon the shoulders of Raleigh, who at once attempted to carry on the work of colonisation which had been started by his half-brother in Newfoundland; and the road to which was about to be pointed out by Richard Hakluyt in his Discourse of Western Planting. Raleigh must have appreciated the appeal made by Sir George Peckham, friend of Gilbert, when he said, "Behold heere, good countreymen, the manifold benefits, commodities and pleasures heretofore unknowen, by Gods especiall blessing not onely reveiled unto us, but also as it were infused into our bosomes, who though hitherto like dormice have slumbered in ignorance thereof, being like the cats that are loth for their prey to wet their feet: yet if now therefore at the last we would awake, and with willing mindes (setting frivolous imaginations aside) become industrious instruments to ourselves, questionlesse we should not only hereby set forth the glory of our heavenly father, but also easily attaine to the end of all good purposes that may be wished or desired."27 Up to this time, by a curious chance, the coastline of the modern United States, from the St Lawrence to the Savannah River, had scarcely been visited and was, in fact, very little known. Here then was an opportunity for Raleigh; and a land, where, if effort was made, the greatest success might be achieved. The land had been unspoilt and untouched by the Spaniards; those few hardy seamen who had entered harbour or creek had found no signs of gold, and had sailed away again. But it was a land of excellent climate, freed from the ice and fogs of the more northern latitudes in which the Elizabethan seamen had shown such pluck and powers of endurance. Captain Carlile, the son-in-law of Francis Walsingham, had already in 1583 issued his encouraging report concerning American trade. Raleigh could not fail to be struck by the sentence, "that whereas one adventureth in the great enterprise, an hundred for that one will of themselves bee willing and desirous to adventure in the next."28 Gilbert's patent for the colonisation of North America had been transferred to Raleigh, who, with great caution, in 1584 dispatched two sea-captains, Amidas and Barlow, to spy out this land of promise. The narrative of these adventurers as given in Hakluyt's Voyages is extremely picturesque. They steered a more southerly course than that of any previous British explorer, and finally reached the island of Roanoke, now within the limits of North Carolina. They described it as a land flowing with milk and honey. "The second of July, we found shole water, wher we smelt so sweet and so strong a smel, as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinde of odoriferous flowers.... We found the people most gentle, loving, and faithfull, voide of all guile and treason, and such as live after the maner of the golden age."29 Amidas and Barlow thus brought back to their patron Raleigh a story full of hope and wondrous possibilities. They had found a land worthy of colonisation and well suited to the English; and this land of promise and of future greatness was christened by the Virgin Queen—Virginia.
The days of exploration and discovery by sea in the West had practically come to an end; the great epoch of colonisation was about to begin. When Elizabeth came to the throne, English ships had seldom sailed further than Iceland in the north and the Levant in the south-east, where a lucrative trade had sprung up as early as 1511. But by the end of the sixteenth century, owing to the encouragement of the Tudor sovereigns, the religious persecutions, and the "peculiar" policy of Elizabeth, the English flag had been proudly borne into all the seas of the world. The globe had been circumnavigated by Drake and Cavendish; trade through Archangel had been established with Russia; spices had been brought from the Indies by the East India Company; "the commodious and gainful voyage to Brazil"30 was regularly undertaken by the merchants of Southampton; while a vast fishing trade had steadily grown up off the coasts of Newfoundland. Above all the "navigations, voyages, traffiques, and discoveries of the English nation" had laid the foundation for greater things. Raleigh's dreams were to be accomplished, though not by himself. Like so many others he was attracted by gold; his thoughts lay too readily in the discovery of an El Dorado in South America, of which the Elizabethan poet wrote:—
"Guiana whose rich feet are mines of gold."
The grain of mustard seed had, however, been planted; the idea had been put forth to the world; a new nation was to rise in the Western hemisphere; and, although no definite results were to be seen by the eyes of the Elizabethans, yet their wild adventures, their acts of knight-errantry, their perils and their sufferings had paved the way for the industrious, sober, steady, and more prudent enterprises of Stuart Cavaliers and of Puritan Pilgrims.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Hakluyt's Voyages (ed. 1904), vii. p. 154.
2. Hakluyt's Voyages, vii. p. 143.
3. Bacon's Works (ed. 1870), vi. 196.
4. Hakluyt's Voyages (ed. 1904), vii. p. 153.